***Please take note that the meeting location has changed and will now be held at the West Trenton Volunteer Fire Company, 40 West Upper Ferry Road, West Trenton, New Jersey 08628. Please arrive by 12pm. Meeting begins at 12:15pm.***

Please join with the Delaware Riverkeeper Network, Protecting Our Waters, Stop the Tennessee Pipeline and others on March 6 to tell the DRBC that fracked gas pipelines, compressors, water withdrawals and waste mandate their attention, not their abdication!

One high level official referred to citizen letters that have been flooding in about one pipeline as “spam.” Join us to make sure the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) understands that citizen voices and input is not “spam;” it should be the fundamental basis of concern for every decision they make. Join us to make sure that this time around our community is heard, through testimony, BEFORE the DRBC votes.

On December 5th, 2012, the Delaware River Basin Commissioners, without any opportunity for advance written comment, without any public hearing, and without even giving any notice that it was on their meeting agenda, voted to deny all requests to exercise their jurisdiction over pipelines. The DRBC later reversed their position on two of the projects — the Tennessee Gas Pipeline (TGP) 300 Line and the 1278 Columbia Line — which had already been completed.

On January 30, 2013 the DRBC sent the Delaware Riverkeeper Network a letter and memo saying they had been wrong in denying all previous requests to look at these two projects and promising to look at them now, after-the-fact, when the only options are to attempt to undo the harm done rather than avoid it altogether.

By the time we come to March 6 the DRBC will have before it nearly 1,000 requests from a rising tide of citizens and organizations to once again consider the pipeline issue. Advocates are requesting the DRBC revisit their decisions on the TGP Northeast Upgrade (NEUP) pipeline, a part of the 300 line, as well as the Commonwealth Pipeline and over a dozen other pipelines known and unknown that will be slicing through our communities and watershed. This time they cannot be allowed to vote without hearing from the people.

Please join us March 6 and plan to speak out, and stand in solidarity with others, to urge the DRBC Commissioners to this time get it right before the damage is done when it comes to pipelines.

(Note: the DRBC will be having a hearing on March 5th at their offices located at 25 State Police Drive in West Trenton for the projects and items listed on their formal docket agenda which can be found here, but that day will not address the drilling/fracking infrastructure that is cutting down upon us now and in the months to come. So we need you March 6.)

The truth is that the chainsaws have already begun on the TGP NEUP, cutting down mature forest that cannot be replaced. But there is still much to be said, reviewed and accomplished on that project as well as all others soon to follow. And there are many efforts still underway to urge DRBC to act now before all the forest is cut down for a pipeline that still does not have a wetlands permit: vigils, watch-dogging, calls/emails to DRBC to act, a first-ever downstream solidarity action in Philadelphia at the Army Corps of Engineers office, pipeline tours, and civil disobedience. To learn more please visit the Stop the Tennessee Pipeline website and the Delaware River Voice – the Delaware Riverkeeper’s blog.

People are taking action, thank goodness. But we need you to join the effort, if you are not already engaged and we ask that you get your friends engaged too. 17 million people rely on the Delaware River Basin for their water – we need more folks to speak out and stand up and you have the power to make that happen – we don’t have the multi-million dollar budgets of the fossil fuel industry but we do have our voices and bodies.

Three Ways to Help Online

1) Sign the Citizens Petition that we will submit on March 6th at the next DRBC meeting & share it with your friends on Facebook:

2) Send an email to urge DRBC to take immediate action on the upriver pipeline Tennessee Gas Pipeline Company/Kinder Morgan is imposing upon us. Our neighbors up river are suffering and need our help to magnify their voice and get DRBC to act today. Send your email now using this Delaware Riverkeeper Network action alert.

3) Sign the Pledge of Protection to let decisionmakers know that you are among the growing number of people willing and wanting to stand in defense of our River and all the communities that depend upon it, its waters, watershed, streams and irreplaceable ecosystems.

How to Attend the March 6th Meeting and Testify

We need you to stand with us on March 6 and send a message to the DRBC that not only do we demand their protection from shale gas drilling and fracking, but we demand their protection from the damage that fracked gas infrastructure will bring without their attention.

Please sign up in advance to ensure your chance to speak by contacting Ms. Paula Schmitt of the Commission staff, at paula.schmitt@drbc.state.nj.us, via fax at 609-883-9522 or by telephone at 609-883-9500 ext. 224.

There are those of us who are going to demand to be heard on this critical issue and to overcome the efforts by the DRBC staff and Commissioners to ignore public input.

Once again, please recall that at their December 5th, 2012 meeting, without providing any public notice or comment period or opportunity for a hearing the Commissioners voted unanimously to take no action on the issue of gas pipelines and now the upper Delaware is being devastated as the TGP NEUP pipeline cuts its way through public forests, wetlands and streams. So it is important to be heard on March 6.

From Philadelphia the Regional Rail can take you to West Trenton in one hour. From the West Trenton Station, walk northwest and turn left on Railroad Ave. Turn Right on Grand avenue. Walk 0.2 miles and turn right onto Howell Ave. Walk 0.5 miles and turn left onto Upper Ferry Road. Continue for 20 feet until you see the Firehouse. Click here for the SEPTA Schedule.

Please join with us on Wednesday and take much needed action to protect the Delaware River Basin!

No problem Patricia, we certainly understand. Thank you for your continued support!

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